What is Heart Rate Variability?
Heart Rate Variability is commonly refereed to as HRV. Variation between the time spacing of individual heartbeats. Heart Rate Variability is determined by measuring the the variation between each beat interval.
What is Good Heart Rate Variability?
Initially one would assume that the opposite would be true. Regular steady and predictable pattern would indicate a positive state. This is not the case. It is not good to have uniform spacing between your heart beats. Having high variation between beats is known as Coherency or High Coherency.
When Would Someone Be In A High Coherency State?
Mind is clear with no looping thoughts of worry. Breathing calmly and slowly. Feeling appreciative and happy.
When Would Someone Be in A Low Coherency State?
Pretty much the opposite of a coherent state. Endless worrying thoughts constantly looping. Breathing fast and shallow, feeling frustrated and angry. The more stressed someone or something is the less variability they have. If you can imagine a mouse being chased by a cat a dying of a heart attack, the spacing between each of its final beats would have almost no variation at all.
Coherency is not the same as relaxed:
Initially I did not realised this. One day when I was training my heart rate variability with the emWave2. (pictured below) I managed to doze off and the light turned red. I was no longer in a coherent state.
